Justice League: Gods and Monsters

Justice League: Gods & Monsters, based on the sneak peek, sounds like a refreshing take on the DCU original animated movies in that it’s a new concept by Bruce Timm. Unfortunately, it’s also promised to be incredibly violent, and it has a vampire Batman, so it could be a mixed bag. Still, new (instead of adapting an existing comic) will be appreciated. Here’s the trailer for the movie, coming out July 28:

It’s described as follows:

Witness a divergent reality where the Justice League protects the planet — but answers to no one but themselves. Employing methods of intimidation and fear, this Superman (Benjamin Bratt), Batman (Michael C. Hall), and Wonder Woman (Tamara Taylor) deal brute force in the name of justice. From the creative genius of executive producer Bruce Timm and co-producer Alan Burnett comes an original story where the world’s greatest triumvirate of super heroes has distinctly different origins. Superman was not raised by the Kents in Smallville, the Caped Crusader is not Bruce Wayne, and Wonder Woman is not an Amazon warrior of Themyscira. They are as likely the world’s saviors as Earth’s despotic rulers. When a group of famed scientists experience untimely “accidents,” a government task force follows the trail of clues to the Justice League — but is there a more powerful player operating from the shadows? It’s a high stakes game of intrigue, mystery, and action that asks the question: How do you serve justice to those above the law?

Additional voices include Paget Brewster as Lois Lane, Jason Isaacs as Lex Luthor, and C. Thomas Howell as Dr. Will Magnus. Sam Liu (Batman: Year One) directed Justice League: Gods & Monsters from an original story by Bruce Timm and co-producer Alan Burnett, who also wrote the screenplay.

Like Batman vs. Robin, there will be a limited edition figure version as well:

The special features on Blu-ray include:

“Alternate Realities: Infinite Possibilities”, which “explores the various attempts by writers to have a little fun and tinker with the characters, resulting in exceptional storytelling that posed thought-provoking questions to audiences.”

“Calculated Risks: The Making of Gods and Monsters”, about Timm and Burnett answering the question “What haven’t we seen before?”

“The New Gods” is a repeat of a 2010 documentary about Jack Kirby’s characters.

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Batman vs. Robin

Batman vs. Robin is a sequel of sorts to Son of Batman, in that Damian is struggling with what it means to be Batman’s son. Only there’s also the Court of Owls interfering, as Talon offers Robin a chance to be his heir as part of a devious scheme, as described in the movie plot description. Damian is torn between his training by Ra’s al Ghul to be ruthless and his sometimes harsh treatment by his father for his own good.

Frankly, I found the movie tedious, predictable, overly violent, and lacking in subtlety. I don’t care for Jason O’Mara as Batman, since I find his voice performance missing depth, and the design for Damian (Stuart Allan) has too big a head, in my opinion.

But I’m not the audience for these original animated films. I wasn’t a fan of the source material, I’ve seen more Batman stories than I need to already, and I prefer discussion over fighting, while the creators of these movies like their punch-up visuals. Clearly, other people — probably teens, given the movie’s PG-13 rating — do like these generic hour-and-20-minute battles, probably for the thrill of seeing more stories with their favorite heroes. I am only curious about them these days for the extras, because sometimes there’s some interesting information in the talking-head segments.

Another indicator that the movies are aiming for the devoted fan: This movie starts a series of collector limited edition packaging that comes with a figurine (no moving parts). It’s pretty cool looking.

The disc included is the same as the regular Blu-ray edition — both come with an additional DVD version and an UltraViolet copy.

Here’s a clip of Robin and Talon (Jeremy Sisto, doing a terrific job) fighting together, demonstrating the thematic conflict of the film:

And Talon’s recruitment efforts:

Damian also takes on Nightwing (Sean Maher), who’s kind of babysitting him one night:

So, once you get past Robin and Batman yelling at and misunderstanding each other and the various battles while they argue about whether or not you should kill your opponents — oh, and let me not forget to mention the creepiest opening sequence I have ever seen in animation, with Robin fighting the Dollmaker, voiced by Al Yankovic — what else is on the disc?

“Gotham City’s Secret: The Mythic Court of Owls” is a half-hour on where the concept came from, with Scott Snyder explaining his love for Gotham as a character. Greg Capullo, artist on the original story, also participates, which is a pleasant surprise. Personally, I don’t think the Court of Owls is an old enough concept to deserve this long an exploration of their meaning, but idealistically, it’s good to see someone doing something new with the Bat-mythos instead of just introducing new takes on old villains. And the discussion of the symbolism of owls was interesting. By the end of the piece, they’d won me over to appreciating the depth of the original story.

“The Talons of the Owls” is 14 minutes about the enforcers of the court, the Talons “doing the dirty work for the intellectuals”. In addition to the DCU cartoon episodes included with the movie, there’s also a Merrie Melodies “Super-Rabbit”. The commentary for the film is by Mike Carlin, director Jay Olivia, and James Tucker (supervising producer of the animation line).

High point for me was an 11-minute sneak peek at the next movie, Justice League: Gods & Monsters, an alternate-universe take on the superteam they’re comparing to the old comic Elseworlds. Mike Carlin promises “If you know the DC universe, it’s going to be Easter egg time for an hour and a half,” which sounds good to me. Plus, it’s produced by Bruce Timm from his original concept.

And now, we’ll end with a photo gallery. (The studio provided a review copy.)

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More Count Spatula Comics by Andi Watson

I liked Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula so much that I was thrilled to discover that there were more comics about them!

First, there will be a short story in Defend Comics, a Free Comic Book Day giveaway benefiting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. This year, that day is Saturday, May 2.

Next, there’s the blog tour Andi Watson participated in recently. At several of the sites, he contributed illustrated fantasy recipes, such as these:

• underworld dirt pie
• rock cakes
• crazy cupcakes
• a pantry tour

You can find out more at Watson’s blog tour page.

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Raina Telgemeier’s Baby-Sitters Club Returns in Color

Out this week is a reissue of The Baby-Sitters Club: Kristy’s Great Idea, this time in full color.

If you’re wondering why, a key clue is the top line of the book’s cover: “A graphic novel from the bestselling author of Smile, Raina Telgemeier”. The author of the original story, Ann M. Martin, has swapped places with her. Before, the idea was to move a beloved series of children’s novels to a new format; now, Raina is the hottest thing in comics and more material from her is welcome.

You can see the original cover in my review of the book.

I find Raina’s art dynamic and expressive enough that I didn’t miss color on the first read through, but I can see that adding color (done by Braden Lamb) would get the book to even more potential readers, particularly young ones. The color palette is well-chosen, soft colors with wide diversity of hues. You can see an example at Raina’s website.

The next book in the series, The Truth About Stacey, will be out in a new color edition in July.

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Drinking at the Movies Returns From Koyama Press

Julia Wertz’s Drinking at the Movies revitalized the graphic memoir genre for me when it came out in 2010 from Three Rivers Press, a paperback imprint of Random House. However, it’s now out of print from them, to be republished by Koyama Press, who put out Wertz’s followup, The Infinite Wait and Other Stories.

The new edition of Drinking at the Movies will be out in November for $15. They’re promising “brand new material from Wertz” and, as you can see promoed on the cover, an introduction by Janeane Garofalo. I’m glad to see the book kept available, and I’m wondering if the new material will address the issues of alcoholism raised by the book’s content.

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Teen Titans Go! The Complete First Season

Courtesy of Warner Archive comes Teen Titans Go! The Complete First Season on Blu-ray. Two discs hold 26 episodes each for a total of 52, which make for almost 10 hours of fast-paced, colorful entertainment. Each episode, sans credits, is only a bit over ten minutes, which keeps things moving quickly. That suits well the daily life aspect of the show. As Warner describes the series,

What happens after everyone’s favorite teenage super heroes have saved the planet from total annihilation? Swing by Titans Tower and find out as Robin, Cyborg, Raven, Starfire, and Beast Boy chill out after a hard day of crime fighting and take on some real challenges like laundry, chores, video games and plain ol’ trying to get along!

Even the most basic activities become ridiculously adventuresome, as in the first episode, where Raven makes up a quest for sandwich ingredients (it’s a BLT) so she can watch the “Pretty Pretty Pegasus” show in peace. Another favorite was “Pie Bros”, because it deals with getting a job and the extent of friendship plus it has a song. Beast Boy wants Cyborg to have a happy birthday, but he has to find a way to get money for the expensive gift his buddy desires. Only, of course, he finds out that true friendship doesn’t involve money. Other plots might involve visits from family members or crushes or playing pranks or coping with a heat wave or trying to find something to do in an afternoon.

There’s a snarky sense of humor that isn’t talking down or softening items for kids. One episode features fighting over who’s going to do the laundry, which results in everyone running around naked (blocked by convenient items) for a while. Another teaches Beast Boy a lesson by pretending he’s a ghost.

The voice acting is a huge part of the appeal, since so much depends on the character interaction. Raven (Tara Strong)’s dry remove from the others is entertaining, as is the way Starfire (Hynden Walch) can sometimes be a bit spacey. (Literally, since she’s an alien princess.) Robin (Scott Menville) has the obsession of the Bat-family, but played for laughs, while Cyborg (Khary Payton) is laid-back, in contrast to his technology. Beast Boy (Greg Cipes) is the over-energetic crazy little kid of the group.

I was thrilled at the few guest stars — and happy that they didn’t use them too often, so when they appeared, it was a real surprise. I never would have guessed Zan and Jayna would appear, for instance, and I thought Speedy as an alternate version of Robin (when competing with him to take out Starfire) was a great choice. We first meet the Titans East (including Bumblebee, Aqualad, and Speedy) when the teams have a combined dance party.

It’s always a pleasure to see a DC superhero show with humor and fun included, and this is the preeminent example of such. Even if they rarely fight villains.

There are no extras on the set, just an episode listing and a “Play All” option. (The studio provided a review copy.)

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Valiant Brings Back Tie-In Purchases, a Comic Code Concern, With Book of Death

Valiant has announced that their big summer push will be titled Book of Death, an “epic, four-part event revealing the future fates of X-O Manowar, Bloodshot, Ninjak, and more in July”. Along with this miniseries, they’re offering the four-issue Book of Death: Legends of the Geomancer — but only as a “retailer-incentive companion series”. That means you can only buy certain amounts, based on how many issues you’ve ordered of the main series.

It’s an obvious incentive strategy that seems sensible to a company. Heck, they do it all the time with variant covers, telling retailers they can order one of HOT ARTIST VARIANT for every 25 or 50 or 100 of STANDARD BOOK they order. But restricting an entire issue based on sales of another product has a historical component that I’m not sure they’ve thought about.

See, saying “you can only buy X if you buy Y” is a called a tie-in sale, and it was one of the issues driving the Senate hearings on comics and juvenile delinquency back in the 1950s. As discussed in Amy Kiste Nyberg’s excellent book Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code,

“Testimony by retailers and newsdealers indicated that tie-in sales were a common practice in the industry. Distributors and wholesalers, however, denied that such practices existed, insisting that no retailer ever had to sell a comic book that he or she did not want to handle.”

Or here, at this site with transcripts of the hearings:

The Hearings were only supposed to be for two days, but a third day came about because of the issue of tie in sales. Newsstand dealers insisted that it was a regular occurrence and it was why the crime and horror comics were being sold. They said they wouldn’t be selling them, but the distribution companies wouldn’t give them the better selling magazines like TV Guide unless they took and sold the crime and horror comics.

From the interim report of the Senate hearings:

Legislation has been enacted by three States, New York, New Jersey, and Idaho, to prohibit what is known as tie-in sales practices.

Of course, then, the perception was that dealers were forced to accept objectionable titles in order to get others they wanted or found more suitable. Here, it’s almost the reverse — they’re trying to artificially create a collectible in order to raise sales on both titles. My brief reading on the subject suggests that now, it’s most cared about if the products are unrelated. Since these two comics series are being pushed as part of the same story, that’s not an issue (and I would hope someone at Valiant has checked out that it’s legal to do this).

Book of Death (and isn’t that a charming title to get excited about?) will be on sale July 15 at $3.99 for 40 pages. It’s written by Robert Venditti with art by Robert Gill and Doug Braithwaite and a variety of variant covers. Book of Death: Legends of the Geomancer is written by Fred van Lente and drawn by Juan Jose Ryp. There’s no set price on its 24 pages, also on sale July 15, and not available digitally. Cover, shown here, is by Marguerite Sauvage. They’re promising that the tie-in series will feature “never-before-seen stories that won’t be collected in trade paperback” about “a character that is not only new to the Valiant Universe, but is also vitally important to its history” in an effort to goose sales of both comic miniseries.

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The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy

Depending on who’s behind them, non-fiction comics can be fascinating and educational, or didactic and boring. Thankfully, The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy falls firmly into the first category.

I attribute that to the crediting of Kevin Cannon as both artist and co-writer. It’s clear that a visual presentation of the material has been kept in mind throughout. The other co-writer, Michael F. Patton, brings the subject matter, since he’s a philosophy professor.

As demonstrated by the cover, the metaphor throughout the book is a journey down the river of philosophy. That allows for various imaginative, entertaining images (as well as the occasional talking fish, commenting archly). Although the text primarily drives the book, there are plenty of strong visuals to enhance, emphasize, and expand on the words.

Our narrator is Heraclitus, one of the pre-Socratic philosophers, given a friendly face and active demeanor by Cannon. He explains early on that philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom, and to investigate that, we’re going to find out what other philosophers thought through history. He’s a great choice for the imagery, since he’s the one that first said, “It is not possible to step twice into the same river.”

In addition to the historical framework, the book is arranged around a collection of the most famous problems tackled by the field over the years:

• logic — looking at what makes an argument successful, and watching Aristotle climb a mountain through a chain of true premises
• perception — examining how we know what we believe, and meeting Descartes and his skepticism in a prison metaphor
• minds — Plato guides us in exploring mind/body dualism, and a tiny Leibniz explores the brain and drives Descartes in one of the most creative sections in the book
• free will — determinism on a yacht trip
• God — exploring religion with logic
• and ethics — what choices we should make about how to live

I appreciated the way that it was acknowledged early on that the canon, the best-known philosophers, makes for a “testosterone-heavy line-up”. As we meet a new philosopher, there’s a half-page biographical sketch with life dates, a representative quote, a summary of his importance, his location, his most famous work, and a fun fact. It’s a lot of info in a small space, made graphically interesting and easy to find on a flip-through. I learned a lot — mainly about the inhabitants of the Monty Python “Bruces’ Philosophers Song” — and had fun while reading. Although clearly, I’ll need a few more trips on the river before I grasp it all. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

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Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula

The unique conceits of Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula by Andi Watson make a charming fairy tale for all ages, although I suspect adults will better identify with Decomposia’s struggles.

Although a princess, she’s overworked. Her father stays in bed all day and has left all the work of running the kingdom to her, although he won’t recognize her contributions and effort. He’s also a hypochondriac and a food faddist, which means they can’t keep a chef. That’s important, because visiting delegations of lycanthropes and yokai expect to be properly entertained. Meanwhile, Decomposia is so busy she doesn’t even have time to eat.

Enter Count Spatula, a talented baker. And he cares about her, providing the friendship she needs.

The art style resembles that of Watson’s previous Glister, although the crayon look used makes it denser and darker, suitable for a decaying castle. I can’t tell, exactly, if Decomposia has bat wings behind her head or just really unique pigtails. The kitchen helper is Clove, who apparently has a garlic clove for a head. (And an adorable brood of kids.)

Watson’s confidence in simplification gives the book the feel of a classic cartoon, particularly with the mummy and skeleton courtiers dropping off ever more papers for Decomposia to handle. I very much sympathized with her struggle to be good to her family and handle too many responsibilities. While kids will find the monsters and the eating entertaining, that’s why I say adults will most know exactly how Decomposia is feeling. For example, this sample page illustrates one of my fears: Losing so much touch with yourself that you don’t know what you’d do if given time of your own.

I also adored the count’s explanation for why he’d lost his fangs: “Cake. And biscuits and pastries. Anything with sugar, really.” Too many sweets! Of course that’s a hazard for a baker. The magic of the setting comes through in his dessert creations, such as a lemon drizzle cake that’s a literal drizzle, served with umbrellas.

But it’s the underlying meaning, the struggle Decomposia faces between her needs — to be a dutiful daughter, to keep the kingdom running, to bow to her father’s dependence on tradition and the way things have always been done — and her essential positive character and search for her own way, that makes Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula such a great read. With its blend of cooking, romance, and fable-like fantasy, it’s terrific and fulfilling.

This interview with Watson has a number of preview pages available. The first pages of the book are posted at Andi Watson’s website.

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Nutmeg Volume 1: Early Fall: Taste Buddies

It’s not too late to preorder the first collection of Nutmeg by James F. Wright and Jackie Crofts. Early Fall: Taste Buddies collects the first three issues of the series for $11.99. It’ll be out at the end of June from Action Lab.

Poppy and Cassia, who met and schemed in the first issue, continue with their plan in the remaining issues. Turns out, though, that a nutmeg overdose can have very different effects depending on the amount and person.

We get more information on the girls’ home lives, a welcome addition to their characters, as well as being reminded how annoying Saffron and her Lady Rangers are. Even she gets some insight, though, as we see her family in the third chapter. People aren’t mean for no reason, and she has her own yoke she’s chafing against.

We also meet Anise and Ginger, two girls who work on the school paper and are also detectives… although there’s nothing much to detect in Vista Vale. I sense an upcoming confrontation, which leads to my biggest complaint about this collection. I wanted more. I can see so much likely to happen, but I have to wait for more issues for those items to be realized. The pacing is leisurely, slowly building suspense and concern while fleshing out the world and the cast.

I do like the characters and their voices and the premise and the artistic expressions and the setting. And the way, if read individually, the issues remind the reader of what’s been going on skillfully, without seeming redundant or obvious.

Also included in the collection will be the recipes and text pieces from the individual issues. The Nutmeg collection can be ordered from your local comic store with Diamond code APR15 0961.

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Mom’s Cancer Begins Serialization at GoComics

Mom’s Cancer, the Eisner-winning webcomic by Brian Fies that was later published in hardcover, is now being re-serialized at GoComics.com (on a weekly update schedule, I think). The best part is that Fies will be adding annotations at his blog. If you haven’t read the story before, you should do so. It’s very touching.

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Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma Volume 5

The food competition series continues with the results of the breakfast cook-off from volume 4. The students, after being up all night, have to successfully serve 200 plates of an egg dish to breakfast buffet customers.

Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma volume 5 once again provides cooking education along with its challenges. To satisfy a customer, a chef has to take into account how a dish will be served in order to keep it attractive in appearance and consistent in taste. The choices needed for a buffet are completely different from sit-down dining orders.

There’s a new character, Alice, a show-off who creates a totally ridiculous triple dish where what appear to be eggs are really asparagus, salmon roe, and a milkshake. It sounds amazing, but the reality of someone creating hundreds of these “molecular gastronomy” fancies reminds me that this is an overheated exaggeration of cooking. I kept confusing her with Erina, the girl with the super-sensitive taste buds and the power of her family running the school behind her. The character designs for these two women are very similar, but there’s a plot reason for it (only explained after I was totally confused).

Erina hasn’t been seen very often. It’s as though writer Yuto Tsukuda and artist Shun Saeki came up with her concept but aren’t sure what to do with her. The new plotline should resolve that problem, though, as Erina gets yet another rival, beyond our hero Soma. Where Soma often stands for the emotion behind honest cooking, Alice represents the future and technology, a clever contrast, and one in keeping with current trends.

Just as the kids think the crash-course cooking camp is over and they have a minute to catch their breath, a new challenge rears its head. The school’s Fall Classic will be another public tournament. But first, there’s a vacation weekend, during which Soma returns home to his family restaurant and neighborhood, where fellow chefs are losing business to a new fried chicken chain. Soma decides to help the street market folks take on the corporate behemoth, once again demonstrating creative thinking in how he solves the problem by considering his target audience.

Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma is very predictable, but due to the cooking knowledge, I find this version of the standard competition manga enjoyable. (The publisher provided a digital review copy.)

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More Than Comics: A Comic-Con Romance Novel

I have read an honest-to-goodness romance novel set at the San Diego Comic-Con. More Than Comics by Elizabeth Briggs is the love story of Tara McFadden, a young woman just out of college who’s been writing Misfit Squad, a successful graphic novel for Black Hat Comics, “the third largest comic book publisher” in this universe.

That’s not the only discrepancy. She’s meeting her artist, Hector Fernandez, for the first time in person at the con, and he turns out to be not only a talented illustrator but also the drummer for a newly popular rock band who almost won The Sound, a music competition show. Plus, he’s incredibly well-built and muscular because he works out to reduce stress. My thought was, where does he find the time?

Of course, the two are going to have hot sex, experience misunderstandings about how serious they are, sulk, and reconcile over the course of the book. All while his band plays a show and they compete in the masquerade along with the other band members and their friends.

The book alternates chapters between Tara and Hector’s point of view, which occasionally got confusing, since the author doesn’t give them strongly distinct interior voices. However, the environment is quite authentic. Although the plot can be artificial, particularly the times when they just don’t talk to each other in order to justify their separations, that’s part of the genre. Overall, the book made for a good airplane read, where I just needed a distraction for an hour or so.

It’s part of the Chasing the Dream series, a collection of romances based around going on reality shows, so Hector first appeared in More Than Music . (My thanks to Ali Kokmen for gifting me a copy of this book.)

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